Written by Yang Hee-kyung, Jin Hyun-joo, and Joyce Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s SK Hynix on Thursday posted its best quarterly profit ever on strong sales of the Nvidia supplier’s advanced chips and said it will continue to grow its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips next year. Demand will continue to outstrip supply, he said.
The company downplayed market concerns about an oversupply of chips used in generative AI chipsets, saying that while demand was stronger than expected, production of its high-margin HBM chips was limited by technical challenges. .
Kim Kyuhyun, head of DRAM marketing at SK Hynix, said in a conference call that the demand for computing power continues to increase, saying, “It is premature to talk about a slowdown in demand for AI chips and HBM at this point.” “I think so,” he said.
The world’s second-largest memory chip maker saw its operating profit recover to 7 trillion won ($5.07 billion) in the July-September period from a deficit in the same period last year. This compares to the average forecast of 6.8 trillion won by LSEG SmartEstimate, which weights analysts to be more consistently accurate.
SK Hynix has outperformed rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology in recent quarters as it benefits most from AI-driven demand for high-end memory chips following its early entry and heavy investment in HBM chip development. There is.
Bigger rival Samsung apologized earlier this month for disappointing results, warning that its third-quarter profit would fall short of market expectations, citing delays in sales of high-end HBM3E chips to unidentified key customers. .
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday that a design flaw in the latest Blackwell AI chip that affected production has been fixed with help from Taiwanese manufacturing partner TSMC. Analysts say these AI chipsets use HBM manufactured by SK Hynix.
According to SK Hynix, HBM’s sales increased by more than 70% from the previous quarter, showing strong growth. Total revenue for the quarter increased 94% year-on-year to 17.6 trillion won.
Ko Yeongmin, an analyst at Daol Investment & Securities, said, “SK Hynix has reaffirmed its competitiveness in the HBM market. Its leading position as an HBM chip supplier will continue next year.”
SK Hynix’s stock price rose 2.3% as of 0318 GMT, compared with a 0.1% decline in the benchmark KOSPI.
Samsung stock has risen 38.5% so far this year, while Samsung stock has fallen 24.7%. Samsung shares fell 2% on Thursday.
SK Hynix expects HBM sales to account for 40% of total DRAM revenue in the fourth quarter, up from 30% in the third quarter, and expects global high-tech companies to compete to increase sales for AI servers. He added that he expects demand for memory chips to grow further next year. Develop generative AI.
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Semiconductor manufacturers plan to increase capital investment to the mid to high 10 trillion won range in response to higher-than-expected HBM demand, and a slight increase is expected in 2025, CFO Kim Woo-hyun said.
SK Hynix, a major supplier of HBM chips to Nvidia, announced last month that it has begun mass production of its HBM3E 12-layer chips and plans to supply the latest products to unconfirmed customers by the end of this year.
(1 dollar = 1,379.9600 won)
(Reporting by Yang Hee-kyung, Jin Hyun-joo, Joyce Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Sonali Paul)
